The Appointment of an Elmbrook Board Member

The inaccurate vote count spurred a lawsuit against Elmbrook's Board President and VP.

As more community members are paying attention to school board elections, it’s important to be reminded of the initial appointment, not election, of a current board member, which was made by a false majority expressed by Board President Scott Wheeler. That mistake spurred a lawsuit against Scott Wheeler and Vice President Jean Lambert which is ongoing.

The appointment of Mushir Hassan on 5/12/2020 was based on Scott Wheeler announcing Mushir as having a false majority of votes. Votes were cast via email. Based on district documents, the correct vote was actually a tie. Somewhat presciently, during an earlier vote on 5/12/2020 Glen Allgaier joked (at 2:09:20) “are you having trouble with single digit addition there Scott?”

After Scott Wheeler announced the false majority (at 2:34:15), Jean Lambert motioned to appoint Mushir Hassan to the board. The district went ahead the same evening of this mistake and announced Mushir Hassan as the appointed Board member, as reported in local news in January 2021.

Based on what Scott told a community member recently, he claims that he was unaware of his mistake until a lawsuit came through against him and Board Vice President Jean Lambert in December 2020. Once he was aware of that, he said that a decision was made to let voters work things out in the next election cycle.

Unfortunately for the Elmbrook community, that assertion is highly questionable. Scott heard in the 10/27/2020 Citizens’ Forum (at 24:45) serious concerns from a community member about this process and how the Board approved amended 5/12/2020 meeting minutes on 9/28/2020 that list “preferences” not “votes.”

The lawsuit against board members Scott Wheeler and Jean Lambert - case 2020CV001745 - is currently in the Court of Appeals as of December 2022.

Scott ran unopposed for the Area 1 seat in 2023.